


Red Room Lessons

by CateBeLate



Category: Marvel
Genre: F/M, Subtle Ship action, natasha's pov, red room lessons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:09:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CateBeLate/pseuds/CateBeLate
Summary: Something small written about Natasha's time in the Red Room with the Winter Soldier as her trainer, and how far she'd be willing to go to prove herself. Even if she loved him.





	Red Room Lessons

They say the clouds above us - soft in their creation - are made of unorganized raindrops, just waiting to fall as they swirl at the behest of the breeze. In such billowy formations, storms are created and unmade, granting both comfort and destruction within the same breath. What most don’t say is that over the land we all grew to love, the clouds were razor sharp in their icy presence. Flickering slivers of frost floating high above, sapping away the baby blue of the midday sky and replacing it with a dull gray that would match the equally monochromatic landscape it blanketed. 

‘This is my home. I am a patriot to my home.’ 

I bleed for the hammer and sickle, knowing full well that they would be the tools of destruction dealt by my hand, and yet . . . as I stare forward in a freshly cauterized indifference, past the veil that had been ripped from my vision to reveal the harshness of the predators I’d surrounded myself with. Regret is too foreign to me - it doesn’t register as I stare across at the stark splash of crimson among the grays and whites and muddled browns. 

Malice coated in the decadence of velvet whispered in my ear, deftness overtaking any logical thought I may have had. I’d been bleached of my own reasoning, my own guilt, my own hibitions - all for the success of the superpower that was my nation. My home. 

“This is your punishment,” she whispers, though conviction swirls beneath each syllable. I can’t look away from the heap of a body before me. I can feel my throat constrict, betraying the forced lack of emotion across my face. I can feel my body acting against the thoughts I pressed harder upon it, convincing myself it was real. 

“This will make you stronger,” she continues, but I can hear her taking a step back, telling me this was now in my own hand. The gun, warm from my own grip, raised in determination. I am a patriot to my home, and I remind myself of this. I will do anything for it to thrive, even if it means offering the entirety of my life for it. Hesitation will only hurt my home. 

I have to be as deadly as the sickle, and as hard as the hammer that crosses it. 

“Natalia…” His voice is barely a croak, and my own name is almost missed over the shattering of a frostbitten heart. The body before me starts to move, barely able to pull together the energy necessary to bring eyes of glacial ice to fall on me. He isn’t surprised or betrayed.

He is expectant.

He’d trained me for this very moment, but foresight held a tunnel-vision, guarded by feeling metal on skin. Lips upon my own. 

The soldier stared up at me, and my hesitation was only an instant long.

I can only hope he saw the apology in my eyes.


End file.
